How to Make a Friendship with the Search Giant Google Using Google Webmaster Tools
A common question of newbie bloggers is What to do after creating a blog and publishing some posts in it? Well, the answer is pretty simple. Add your blog URL to major search engines and start optimizing your blog for search engines especially Google. Optimizing blog for search engines includes adding meta keywords and descriptions to blog homepage and every single posts, making Permalink structure search engine friendly, putting a suitable title that includes keyword etc. But here in expert blogging world, everyone puts the most significant effort for optimizing blog for Search giant Google. Primarily you’re done after adding your URL to Google Search Engine. But when you’re serious about blogging, everything should be professional. That’s why informing Google about your new blog is never enough as long as you are thinking of making money from it. So, the question is, what should you do next?
Be a Google-Friend. Alternatively, make Google your Friend.
My suggestion to you is make a friendship with Google on behalf of your blog so that Google indexes your blog faster and shares insight information with you!
And for that,…
Here comes Google Webmaster Tools
Google itself provides solution for you. They have an incredibly useful service called Google Webmaster Tools that will let you know [and configure] your blog or website about important information regarding Google Search. For instance, you can have a look at the top search queries and your position in search result, how many backlinks your blog has got, keywords Google found from your blog etc. From Site Configuration, you can change Crawler Access to your blog, target your blog to specific country etc. There are a lot more to find out inside Google Webmaster Tools. Honestly there’s no need to write a detailed tutorial on everything that you can do and you can get by using Google Webmaster Tools. Once you’re inside of it, you’ll discover the usefulness of it.
So, let’s do the first job — getting registered.
Sign in for Webmaster Tools
To take advantage over Google Search Engine, you have to own a Google account. Note: A gmail account is fine. You can sign in using your Gmail/Google account. Please click here to sign in to Google Webmaster Tools.
Adding a Blog/Site
Once you’ve been logged in, you will be redirected to the Google Webmaster tools homepage. You will find a button that says “Add a Site” in the middle of the right area. Click that and provide your blog URL. Double-check if you have not made any mistake typing your blog URL. Click “Continue” when done.
Confirming Google that you’re the owner
This will register that blog under your Google Webmaster Tools account. The next thing you need to do is verifying your site/blog. Google doesn’t know if you are the blog owner. It needs to confirm that you are actually the owner of that blog so that it can give you insight to your blog on Google Search Engine. There are two easy ways of verifying your blog.
Verify by uploading an HTML file
From the dropdown list, you have to choose the second method named HTML file and Webmaster Tools will give you an HTML file name. All you have to do is to upload a blank html file in the root of your blog so that it can be accessible from www.yourblog.com/GoogleProvidedName.html. Please note that this method is easier if yours is a static website. You should use the Meta Tag method to verify your blog. That is easier. That is faster.
Verify by a short Meta tag
By default, after clicking continue, you’ll see a one-line code appears inside a box. Here’s what you need to do:
For WordPress:
- Copy the code.
- Go to your wordpress administration panel and click the “Editor” sub-menu under the “Appearance” option.
- Choose “Header (header.php)” from the list of pages that appears at the right side of the screen of WordPress theme editor.
- Find out tag and paste the copied code right before the closing head tag.
- Click “Update File” button.
For Blogger:
- Copy the code.
- Go to Blogger dashboard. Then click “Layout” and then “Edit HTML”.
- Find out the tag and paste the copied code right before this tag.
- Click “Save the Template” button.
Final step of verifying your blog
Come back to Google Webmaster Tools and click the verify button. Google will immediately send a robot to check if the given code is properly placed in the header of your blog. If everything was done well, your blog will be verified.
Adding a sitemap for faster indexing
After your site has been verified, Google will be asking you to add a sitemap to your blog and link that from inside your Webmaster tools. To add a sitemap to your blog, install and activate this plugin to your wordpress. It will create a sitemap for your blog.
Once your sitemap is created, go back to Webmaster tools and click “Site Configuration” > “Sitemap” from dashboard menu at the left sidebar. Click on add a sitemap button and give the link of your blog’s sitemap.
Alternative: You can use your feed as your sitemap. Just put the word “feeds” in the box (without the “”).
Knowing the screen
You can now take a look inside your Webmaster Tools. Google will share every information it has indexed about your site or blog. You can choose any option from the left sidebar and the original options will be shown in the right-sided area. In my opinion, it is totally unnecessary to explain what is what inside your dashboard. Just explore a few minutes, you will shortly be familiar with it. It’s important for a blogger’s life. ‘Cause in your blogging life, you will have to do countless research for various purposes such as writing a tutorial or a sponsored post.
Time to hear from you
Okay, I’ve talked a lot about Google Webmaster Tools. Now here comes your turn to talk. Have you been using Google Webmaster tools? Did you notice any significant improvement in your blog’s search traffic that was blessed by the Google Webmaster Tools? Share your experience and the usefulness of Google Webmaster Tools with our newbie readers so that they can realize how important it is.
Did you find this article useful? Did this help you anyway? Is it worth rewarding me for it? Please support me to keep this work up.
